The LOR is a document that provides the admission officers with a comprehensive insight into your suitable candidate for admission into the concerned University. The full form of LOR is a Letter of Recommendation. This letter aims at enabling the Admission officers to gain a clearer and more favourable picture of your experience, achievements, contributions, and skills communicated by the recommender through the recommendation letter.
An academic letter of recommendation is required by any student going to study abroad. Irrespective of the course (UG, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.) and country, every student requires at least three letters of recommendation from either their college or professional background. For UG, students, LORs can be taken from teachers, professors, school counselors, or principals. For MS students, college professors, internships supervisor, or team lead/ manager from the company they have worked for can issue recommendation letters. For MBA students, LORs should be purely professional, especially if they have an experience of three years or more. For MBA and Ph.D. aspirants who have recently graduated from college, they can ask for recommendation letters from their college professors or project guides.
Provided that almost every application necessitates submission of 2-3 recommendation letters, you must have your recommenders identified and agreed to prepare your letter well in time. Also, don’t underrate the importance of a LOR as it is almost as important as your admission essays, statements of purpose, resume, or any other document for that matter. A Letter of Recommendation is a document that provides credibility to your whole profile as it is a strong support of your profile from experienced and learned professors and persons. While choosing the right recommender, you must remember a few key pointers following which you will end up submitting outstanding LORs to the Admission Committee.
Letters of Recommendation broadly can be classified into two broad categories based on the Nature of the Recommender.
A letter of recommendation is provided by a faculty member of your previous institute. Usually, universities ask for you to provide two or three LORs from your previous institute (this could be your teachers from your schools in case of undergraduate courses and professors from your college in case you are applying for masters' programs). The Letter of Recommendation (LOR) Format from Faculty often varies in content and requires the professor to highlight the applicant's accomplishments as a student of the course. Often, these are more relevant to MS Colleges Abroad or Bachelor Courses abroad.
Most of the MBA Colleges Abroad have predefined work experience requirements. Accordingly, they request a Professional Letter of Recommendation from an immediate supervisor. The Professional Letter of Recommendation (LOR) Format from a Supervisor varies from an Academic LOR in terms of some specific content that focuses on the applicant's ability to work within a team, the exposure to the domain as well as his/her leadership abilities - all necessary to the MBA course applied for.
Unless otherwise specified, a letter of recommendation is a 400-500 word essay that talks about the candidate's strengths and weaknesses. There are some things you must include in a recommendation letter like the nature of the association as well as the tenure of the association. Apart from that, some basic formats must also be kept in mind. Most universities require this letter to be on the official letterhead. For an Academic LOR - the university's letterhead is required and for a Professional LOR - the letterhead of the company. What is important to remember in the latter case is that the letterhead should be of the company the recommender is working in. This usually creates a problem if your recommender has moved on to another organisation. Hence, the student must know how to choose the right recommender.
An important point to be kept in mind is that a LOR is not a repetition of an SOP. An ideal LOR is supposed to demonstrate aspects/perspectives of your personality not mentioned either in your SOP or resume. Thus, an ideal recommender knows you well, has personally witnessed the quality of work delivered by you, and readily agreed to provide specific instances of your valued contribution and excellence. A generic LOR is a strict no-no as it does not offer much value to your candidature for the program you are applying to.
You must always remember that the Admission Committee scurries through thousands of applications and yours is one of them. Now, to stand out, focus on including your qualities and accomplishments reinforced by real instances. Another important point here is to endeavour to make all your LORs unique and that can be achieved only if you include unique instances in all the LORs. Making an Impressive Letter of Recommendation is as important as writing a winning SOP. Just keep the formats in place and remember the common mistakes you should avoid in a recommendation letter.
LOR requires a very specific type of understanding and each college has its requirements and formats. At Your Global Mentors we help you acquire all such necessities and also help you in drafting a Letter of Recommendation in the best possible manner.
